The prairie provinces of Canada and the central states of the United States have experienced several threats of floods during the last 20 years. Specific to Manitoba, Canada, there are currently forecasts of a major flood for the Spring of 2011. Indeed, due to a wet Summer/Fall of 2010 combined with above average amounts of snow during the 2010/11, there is now a forecast for above average run off for areas south of the 56th parallel, and areas potentially affected by flooding will include not only the city of Winnipeg and rural areas in Manitoba but also areas close to the Assiniboine River. Even with average weather during the Spring of 2011, communities in this region will likely be hit with floods similar to the flooding that occurred in 2009. Further, there is a currently estimated to be a 10% chance of unfavorable weather prior to Spring 2011, which could lead to a flood in Winnipeg comparable to that of 1997, which has been referred to as “the Flood of the Century.”
Given the damage caused by floodwaters historically, and the ongoing prospect of flooding in the future, people have developed various systems and methods for attempting to prevent floodwaters from causing excessive damage by attempting to block (or divert) the floodwaters from proceeding unimpeded into areas that would otherwise suffer great damage if exposed to those floodwaters. One conventional type of system in this respect involves the providing of numerous bags or bag-like structures into which sand or other filling material is deposited, and positioning numerous such bags or bag-like structures so as to establish one or more wall(s) that block the floodwaters from moving from area(s) where flooding is of less concern (or where in any event flooding cannot be effectively precluded) into area(s) with respect to which protection is desired. Yet such conventional systems involving bags (or bag-like structures) are limited in a variety of respects.
More particularly, if pre-filled bags (or bag-like structures) are used, such pre-filling can be expensive and the moving of such pre-filled bags can be time-consuming and labor-intensive and/or energy intensive. Practically speaking, pre-filling of bags also limits the size and weight of the pre-filled bags that can be utilized, since the difficulty and costs of moving such pre-filled bags goes up with the bag size. Conventional pre-filled bags, for example, can take on weights of 4000 pounds. Yet limiting bag size/weight in this manner can be undesirable. In particular, in some flooding circumstances (e.g., where the floodwaters are severe and the potential pressures upon a flood barrier are large) it can be desirable that the bags (or bag-like structures) have a larger size and/or weight so as to better withstand the floodwaters.
Alternatively, while certain systems have been developed which allow for the on-site filling of bags (or bag-like structures), at locations where sand or other filling material is available for the filling of such bags, such systems themselves can suffer from disadvantages as well. In some such systems, while individual sandbags can be filled with sand, the filling process of each individual bag is inefficient (e.g., during filling of a bag with sand, some sand will “miss” the bag entrance and be spilled over the sides of the bag). Also, in some such systems, even assuming that multiple individual sandbags are filled, the manner in which those sandbags are filled may result in sandbags that are not ideally suited for forming a wall. In particular, the individual sandbags may not be sufficiently regular or consistent in shape such that the sandbags, when placed together, form a wall that is sufficiently leak-proof.
Notwithstanding the disadvantages associated with conventional systems and methods, these systems have continued to be used frequently. Indeed, many of the properties that will likely require protection in the city of Winnipeg as well as in rural municipalities in Manitoba in 2011 (most of which sit between the primary dikes, or roads, city rivers and creeks) were sandbagged in the 1997 and 2009 floods. Nevertheless, there clearly is a need for improved systems and methods for flood protection, as the city of Winnipeg alone is planning to raise 15 kilometers of primary dikes in the coming weeks to protect the city from rising waters. Indeed, flood personnel from both the city of Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba are urgently searching for flood protection products that are one or more of stable, resistant to the force of rising waters, leakproof (or at least substantially leakproof), easy to set up, and easy to remove.
Given the above, it would be advantageous if new or improved systems or methods for providing flood protection could be developed that addressed one or more of the above-described issues and helped address the ongoing and, at this moment, imminent need for enhanced flood protection.